ABSTRACT
The important change resulting from task-centred casework and other developments towards a more openly shared contractual type of casework is that the probation officers in the specific project only recommended those cases for probation where, after careful exploration, a specific problem could be identified which the client recognised and acknowledged as something. Such provisional agreements presented to the magistrate approximate to the task-centred model in which clients are motivated to engage in problem-solving activities with their social workers. Most of the probation officers participating in the project were psychodynamically oriented, used to exploring their clients’ problems and past experiences in considerable depth; they subscribed to the theory that insight into the nature of their past difficulties and their possible link with the present was an important step towards resolving current problems in living within the therapeutic client/worker relationship.
